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satkin2

macrumors regular
Original poster
Mar 31, 2010
169
0
Hi,

I'm hoping you may be able to help me understand USB cables and power a bit better.

I've got an M1 MacBook Pro, so USB-C. As such, I've had to upgrade some cables as I didn't previously have USB-C.

I've got numerous spinning external HDDs, which all have a USB 3.0 Type-B Micro connection. I got a USB-C to USB 3.0 Type-B Micro cable and these power up and mount on my Mac without issue.

I've also got a 1TB SSD external drive. When I plug that in, it doesn't show at all.
.
I've got a unpowered USB hub, which has a USB-C port in it. If I plug in via that, the SSD will mount. I'm at a loss to understand why when no extra power is being added, it works with the hub, but not directly. I ordered a cable which apparently has SuperSpeed+, which from what I could gather should give me Thunderbolt capability, so I thought this would give me what I needed to mount the SSD without the hub, but it was still unsuccessful.

Would anyone be able to advise, a. why would it work through the unpowered hub but not directly?, b. is there a cable I could/should get that would get it working without the hub?

Many thanks
 
Last edited:

joevt

Contributor
Jun 21, 2012
6,689
4,086
USB on M1 Macs has some issues.
 

satkin2

macrumors regular
Original poster
Mar 31, 2010
169
0
USB on M1 Macs has some issues.
Very interesting. Thanks for the link.
 
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